An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a
Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down
the track which leads from the steading to the pasture. Being apparently
unable to focus what she wants to see she adjusts a pair of spectacles.
This action brings into her range of vision a distant figure which is
engaged in shepherding a herd of passive but resisting cows through a
gap in the dyke. It is a slow business, but the procession gradually
nears home; and when the man at the helm succeeds in steering his
sauntering charges safely between the Scylla of a hay-rick and the
Charybdis of the burn, the old lady takes off her spectacles and relaxes
her vigilance.
When she looks again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of dismay.
The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the door of
the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving through
an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a lumbering
gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend in the road.
"The feckless body!" observes the old lady bitterly. Then she raises her
voice.
"Elspeth!"
A reply comes from within the dairy.
"Ay, mem?"
"You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no hand
with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the maister is
away at----"
With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side
door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the incompetent
cow-herd.
At length the animals are rounded up into the byre, and Elspeth proceeds
with the milking.
Meanwhile Master Robert, "the feckless body," stands in a rather
apprehensive attitude before the old lady. He is a huge man of about
forty-five. He is clean-shaven, and he has humorous grey eyes and dark
hair. Despite his homespun attire, he looks more like a leader of men
than a driver of cattle.
"Robin Fordyce," says the old lady severely, "what garred ye loose
Heatherbell in among the neeps.
"I'm sorry, mother. But I met Jean M'Taggart in the road, and--we
stopped for a bit crack."
The old lady surveys her son witheringly over her glasses.
"Dandering wi' Jean M'Taggart at your time of life! I'll sort Jean
M'Taggart when I see her. It's jist like her tae try and draw a lad from
his duty. And you! A married man these fifteen years! 'Deed, and it's
time yon lady wife of yours cam' here from London, tae pit a hand on
you."
The big man's penitent face lights up with sudden enthusiasm.
"She is coming to-morrow!" he roars exultantly.
"Aye, you may pretend tae be glad! But she shall hear aboot Jean
M'Taggart all the same," replies the old lady.
This, of course, is a tremendous joke, and the inquisition is suspended
while mother and son chuckle deeply at the idea of Dolly's desperate
jealousy. Suddenly Mrs Fordyce breaks off to ask a question.
"Did ye mind tae shut the gate of the west field?"
Robin thinks, and then raises clenched hands to heaven in an agony of
remorse.
His mother groans in a resigned sort of way.
"Run!" she says, "or ye'll hae all the sheep oot in the road! Get them
back, and I'll no' tell David on ye!"
Her son bounds away down the slope, but a further command pursues him.
"An' come back soon! I'll no' be getting you tae myself over much
after--to-morrow!"
She sits down again in her chair outside the door in the afternoon sun;
for she is getting infirm now, and cannot stand up for long. With an
indulgent sigh she surveys the flying figure of the Right Honourable Sir
Robert Chalmers Fordyce, Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, as he
frantically endeavours to overtake and head off three staid ewes, who,
having strayed through the open gate, have just decided upon a walking
excursion to London.
"A good lad!" she murmurs contentedly. "A good lad, and a good son; and
dae'n' weel. But--he's no' just David. It was always David that had the
heid on him."
* * * * *
A prophet, we know, has no honour in his own country. Fortunately some
prophets prefer that this should be the case.